Posted
by
Zonk
on Thursday September 13, 2007 @04:25PM
from the guy-thinks-highly-of-himself dept.

freakxx writes "Xinhua report that a Beijing University student has sued Microsoft for allegedly gathering personal information via Windows Genuine Advantage. He has demanded a compensation of 1,350 RMB (around US$ 180) and an open apology printed in a national newspaper. The student has accused Microsoft of using WGA to gather information about his computer and himself, rather than solely checking whether or not the installed Windows XP system was genuine. A Microsoft spokesman has declined to speak on this issue and said that the matter is under investigation."

"A Microsoft spokesman has declined to speak on this issue and said that the matter is under investigation"

In a press release, MS claims:

We have NO idea what information is gathered as part of WGA. We promise to investigate what information is gathered, and then blame the collection of personal information on a rogue programmer who did it without the permission or knowledge of management. In the future, we promise to encrypt all the personal information we collect so you can't tell that we are doing this anymore.

There are some things you can blame on the government. For everything else, there's Microsoft.

How do you tell the difference [slashdot.org]? The severity of punishment for thought-crime in China makes privacy a very serious matter.

I'd like to make a joke about in how Communist China, you sue the BSA, but it's just not funny. People who look at the wrong web page are put in jail and executed for their organs. Technicians have testified before the US congress that prisoners were skinned alive to better preserve the s

I would be careful about relying on the testimony of technicians. The United States was lulled into the first Gulf War partially on the testimony of a woman saying Iraqi troops were breaking into Kuwaiti hospitals and stomping infants in incubators to death. It later turned out the woman was a member of the Kuwaiti royal family, and made the whole thing up as part of a systematic Kuwaiti campaign to get America to attack their invaders.

That's not to say the charges against China are without basis. I'm just advocating some skepticism about people who may have a grudge against China, or have a good reason to lie about torture back home (so they can get asylum and citizenship here in the United States).

I'm just advocating some skepticism about people who may have a grudge against China, or have a good reason to lie about torture back home (so they can get asylum and citizenship here in the United States).

You must realize that the desperation people feel, which you think makes them less than honest, is also an indictment of China. Technicians are comparatively privileged people without economic reasons to immigrate. What grudge can they have that's great enough to make them leave their friends and fam

Huh, really?One of my roommates in college was a Palestinian guy who grew up in Kuwait. His family was in vacation (thank heavens) in America when Saddam invaded. They broke into his house, pissed on the carpet, stole his TV and anything else valuable, and lived in it for the duration of the occuptation. His family's bank accounts got frozen, which he never got back. Fortunately, his father was a big believer in cash when going on vacation and had two hundred thousand dollars *on hand* in LA, with which the

Would a delegate to the People's Congress have a reason to have a grudge against China? Because one stated last year that they executed a hair under 10,000 people, a rate which is over sixty times that of the US's on a population-weighted basis. (We're #2 on absolute and population-weighted counts among major nations.) Amnesty International, noted human rights organization, was skeptical -- based on Chinese newspaper reports, they think China merely killed at a multiplier of twenty, with an unknown addit

Yeah, the first Gulf War, which was sold to the American people by the Bush administration (the first one, remember? Junior's Daddy?). It was a much better sell job (though arguably a much easier sell job). It was, I personally think, a much more justified war than the current one, but still had some significant spin involved in selling it.

The US greatly surpass both Communist Soviet and WW2 Germany when it comes to propaganda. If you blindly believe things said by US authorities i have a bridge to sell you cheaply. Havent you asked yourself lately where all the WMD from Iraq is?
China is does terrible things to its people but damn, how many people havent died in Gaza, Afganistan, Iran and Iraq because of direct involvment from the US? Atleast China maims and kills inside its own borders.

Please point to a single case of people looking at the wrong web site, and then being killed, with their organs harvested. China has its major political problems but just the idea of what you're saying is totally ridiculous.

Customer:1) Person who potentially buys things. The one they buy from is known as a vendor.2) (Microsoft dfn). Ugly bags of mostly water+some money. The idea is to get the money out of the bags and then be able to keep it. For some reason, the bags sort of hold on to it when it's being taken.

"Customers." They keep using that word. I do not think that word means what most of us think it means.OEMs are the customer. The end user who purchases a PC from an OEM and finds himself dependent on Microsoft is not the customer, he is the product.

Oh, really. I really don't like when a Slashdotter pulls a one-bit logic on a painful issue.

How about a more realistic look: OEMs are the customer who buys the Windows licenses. And end-users are the customers of the hardware vendors who preinstall Windows on the

> How about a more realistic look: OEMs are the customer who buys the Windows licenses. And end-users are the customers of the hardware vendors who preinstall Windows on their machines to make them usable for the masses.

The problem with Microsoft is they're no longer working this way. Their business model is much more like that of RIAA/MPAA.

The guy watching Battlestar Galactica isn't the customer of the Sci-Fi Channel. He's the product. Sci-Fi's customer is the advertiser, who purchases the product (us). BSG is merely the means by which Sci-Fi delivers the product (us) to the customer (advertiser).

Similarly, Microsoft's installed base is the product. OEMs are the customer, users are the product, and the operating system is the means by which Dell gets to monetize its investment in Microsoft OEM licenses.

Hear me out. If he truly didn't want to be spied on, have his details collected, he should be getting the hell out of china, not using it's legal system to sue a company for doing what the government does to everybody everyday.

And, er, which country would you suggest he move to? Are you under the impression that there are any countries that don't collect personal data on their inhabitants and conduct surveillance on them? (I omit wiretaps, of course, as there are lots of countries that don't do that.)

And, er, which country would you suggest he move to? Are you under the impression that there are any countries that don't collect personal data on their inhabitants and conduct surveillance on them? (I omit wiretaps, of course, as there are lots of countries that don't do that.)

The problem is, how much are you practically able to express these things publicly? Recent events have shown that to be rapidly eroding in America.

Such as what? What are you not able to express publicly in America?

A guarantee you that somewhere in America right now someone is standing on some street corner with a megaphone (covered in and-written cardboard signs probably) shouting that Bush did 9/11, that he's a war criminal, and should be tried and found guilty of treason. And if the police are doing any

By specifically mentioning America, you seem to be implying that this isn't happening all over the western world. You're a tool.

You're not very good at this whole "reading" thing, are you Mr. Coward. I'll give you an example that even your obviously feeble mind should be able to understand.

You are an idiot. Now, by my saying that you are an idiot, that does not in any way imply that I believe everyone else is a genius. As to the specific topic at hand, yes I do believe that erosions of rights are occu

this stunt is more of a nationalistic chest thumping exercise. were microsoft a chinese company and this guy had done what he did, he would be ignored, reprimanded, harasssed, or arrested. but being an american company, the authorities probably approve of it

Okay, thought about it. Yes, it is pretty laughable that the US Military has to now go to a judge before spying on a suspected member of a foreign terrorist organization. As goofy an inept as that makes us look, I still want to make fun of China. China's problem isn't exactly goofiness.

I'd imagine MS has a tough decision to make... just pay up as going to court would be a lot more expensive (but perhaps set a precedent allowing others to sue them or threaten suit), or go to court and spend a lot more to hopefully prevent a precedent (assuming the guy wins).

I applaud this person for taking a principled stand against spyware that has been forced upon him.The fact it's made by Microsoft should be irrelevant, just analyze the behavior of the application and judge it on that.

WGA communicates unique information at any time to an American based advertising company (msn anybody?) with you the user having no idea of what data and what the implications are of giving this company that data.

Can your business really risk an application like this on your systems? Are you

WGA works the same here as it does in China. The notion that they collect "no personal information" is very clever, but untrue.

Microsoft can easily associate your pc with a record in their backend because each pc generates a unique signature. They don't have your name at the moment, but that doesn't mean they don't know who's using their OS when and where. Given the number of times a windows box phones home when it goes online, I'd say there's plenty they know about you.

This is exactly like the story some months ago where AOL gave out search data that was supposedly private. Same situation, bigger fish.

BTW, if you are still married to a microsoft OS, your software firewall should be good enough to alert you when it attempts these connections. My Kerio firewall at work does it. And marriage is the right word for it because sometimes you wonder what the hell you got yourself into.

I think nobody does it in the US because here in the US we're all talk and no action. That, and we're also much more afraid of the corporations and their power than we say we are - in major part because we buy everything they feed us and we're afraid of what will happen if that hand suddenly doesn't come out for lunch.
I may live hand-to-mouth with my computers, but at least it's my hand.

The notion that they collect "no personal information" is very clever, but untrue.
Microsoft can easily associate your pc with a record in their backend because each pc generates a unique signature.

I have some experience in this area. According to our attorneys, but being informally paraphrased by myself, it was important to never mix personally identifiable information (PII) and non-personal information. Any mixing or linking would cause the non-personal to become PII and therefore under the jurisdiction of US and international legislation, with more legislation on the way given the new found importance of this topic. So to make life simple, I may collect the operating system version for demographic reasons but I can not record an account name, IP number, or other PII with that information, nor could I have some common key to associate records in PII and non-personal databases.

Wait a minute.I may collect the operating system version for demographic reasons but I can not record an account name, IP number, or other PII with that information

I still don't see how that should make Windows users feel secure.

History has repeatedly shown it's quite easy for Microsoft to argue in court they don't "collect" PII despite the fact they most likely do. Anecdotes abound of Judges and cases where technical fiction often passes as fact.

Are you kidding? The Chinese are not catching up at all!! A weesy beesy $180?? What about punitive damages??
On a serious note, asking for a reasonable amount of money and a public apology does make people think that he's doing this out of principle and conviction, not motivated by greed. If the Chinese civic legal system continue to evolute this way, who knows? Maybe in 50 years, it won't be so bad after all.

I truly hope he wins. And I am glad that he is not asking for much. I'm pretty sure Microsoft will try to settle out of court but I am also pretty sure this guy is not really doing this for the money. The Chinese government has been trying to reinforce the people's trust in their legal system so I don't think they will just push the case aside, especially after it being covered on Slashdot.
I really hope this case gets the attention it needs because this case could be the answer to protecting the privacy of all of us. Setting the precedent in China will make way for more precedents elsewhere.
Lu Feng... we are with you!!!
K
PS: I'm pretty sure somebody in Microsoft is going nuts right now... hehe

You need to move that decimal place at least six more places to the right.

Not a problem. If he wins, millions of other Chinese will follow suit.
I don't think that China has class actions, so Microsoft will have the fun and expense of defending each suit separately if they don't settle.

Yup, once the Chinese legal system settles in this guys favor, the Chinese government will no doubt use a ruse such as this to ban WGA checks within their borders. For Privacy... Yeah. Not to get free access to all those patches on Windows Update without the check... Oh no, they would never do that...:)

I'm from Beijing. I understand the situation Mr. Lu Feng is faced with: a monopoly power M$, a considerably corrupted legal system, and the suspected alliance of the two.
In Chinese gov't (and persumably court) offices they run the M$ Windiz + Office. M$ is an 'official' choice. If Lu wins, an implication would be that M$ not only voilates out privacy & property rights, but also severely threatens the public security of the country. However the gov't are not fools, neither are M$ men. Gov't clearly knows what M$ is always doing to its costumers. Ergo, PRC Gov't --- M$ is not the same as you --- your software producer. That's why I suspect the two are in alliance with each other --- alliance based on the crime of betrayal and spying. The county is doomed. The PRC collapses and you Amiricans are happy...
However that's only some hot air. In reality the lawsuit probably would end in a reconcilation with M$ paying a sum of $ to Lu for his silence. That would be the easiest way for both the court and M$. Even if Lu wins, only a few could benefit from the case --- Lu himself and those private users of authenticated Windiz. The Mass use pirate copies, remember! In my university (Beijing Normal Univ.) there are about 2000 university-owned boxes running pirate Windiz and PowerPoint things, from the library to every classroom ( why do they think every classroom needs a computer??) --- mass violation of the law!!
Perhaps the media coverage of this case would encourage more Chinese switching to Linux / (GNU/Linux). Just a wish. Personally, I don't care about it. I'm using Fedora GNU/Linux, remaining quiet over the matter, and I'll be relatively safe. One thing interesting: you guys at/. are much more active on the topic than native Chinese men. You know M$ is just M$. But for many Chinese, M$ means either a large, shadowing power who can sue you against using pirate copies of its products at any time it wishes, or the only OS/office/othersillystuff solution. They don't even know Linux or/. exists.

I'd rather Microsoft have my personal info than the government. Any government.

How do you know Microsoft won't give the government your info? Wasn't MS one of those cited for giving the Chinese government data on people? Wasn't MS cited for sharing data with the US government, along with Yahoo while Google refused?

Yes, because as we all know, private companies are accountable to The People, whereas governments are only accountable to their shareholders.Come on, do you really think that a private company like Microsoft will hesitate as much as one second abusing the information they hold about you if it could earn them money? At least a government - any government - is ultimately accountable by the people. Even the Chinese government has to take the population into account when they make their decisions if they don't

No. In Catholicism they reveal that your computer has already been controlled by an evil entity that hates you but that a good entity loves you and wants to install beneficial software that will help you.

You can keep using the evil software for free and keep paying hidden fees or you can get a new install of the good software that someone else has already paid for.